In this issue Jim Dalrymple looks at how Apple is able to capture the essence of our lives and touch us with its TV ads; Darren Murph argues that it’s time for the phone number to die; Alex Vollmer tells us all about tube amps, including a wonderful video; Kirk McElhearn looks at collecting music and how it has changed; and Nathan Snelgrove explains how a $600 guitar means so much.

Jim and Dan talk about the new Mac Pro’s, the Universal Audio Apollo, Nokia’s latest commercial, how to get better at guitar without practicing, and more.

Sponsored by Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME1213 for 25% off), Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), and Squarespace (use code DANSENTME12 for 10% off).

If you’re going to get a lens for your iPhone 5c, it might as well be a cool color. I’ve been meaning to try these lenses out.

Photos+ can replace the built-in Photos app for viewing, organizing, and sharing your pictures. It looks prettier, it has more sharing options, and it shows you more info about where, when, and how each photo was taken.

Nice looking app.

Clearly they post production did a great job replacing the igloo with a real house.

Kids, this is why you don’t do drugs while making a TV ad.

Lyve Minds’ answer to the problem is to recreate the cloud in your living room. The company’s apps will let phones, tablets and computers talk to each other and access personal media on each of them. Lyve supports iOS, Android, Windows and Mac OS at launch, with plans to add more platforms down the road. The company’s apps will back up photos from a mobile device to other devices in the network, free up and reallocate space and always keep multiple copies of each file.

It will be interesting to see how Tim Bucher pulls this off.

Great tip from Gabe Weatherhead. I didn’t know you could do this.

The iPhone 5s came in in third place overall, behind Nelson Mandela and Paul Walker. Among smartphones, though, Apple’s iPhone 5s took the top spot, beating out the Galaxy S4 for the most searched-for handset. The iPhone 5c took third place, followed by the HTC One and Google’s Nexus 5.

Impressive.

I hate when companies do stuff like this.

Dustin Curtis:

The best way to predict the future is to think about desire. The problem with desire is that it tends to be bounded by what’s actually possible; as we grow older, our imaginations seem to develop artificial caps that limit our ideas to things that are reasonably achievable in the short term. But who cares about what is reasonable? Here’s what I want.

Yes, far fetched, but if you’re going to dream, dream big.

Samsung is said to be planning its own Apple-like retail push across the U.S., as the company recently hired an ex-Apple senior store designer, according to a new report.

Why the fuck not, they copied everything else Apple did.

Steven Aquino:

From a pure design perspective, aesthetically speaking, it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize the new shapes. They are indeed ugly, but the overall importance of this new addition trumps the way in which they’re presented. That is to say, regardless of how the buttons look, the sheer fact that they add a level of desprately-needed contrast makes the buttons a huge usability win, and likely — rightfully — will garner much praise from the visually impaired segment of the accessibility community.

Designers need to remember this when criticizing the new button shapes.

The Loop Magazine 2.1 was released today with a few significant changes including:

• Push notifications for new issues including background download
• App now remembers your previous location
• Improved sharing
• Cover art will change with each issue on your device
• Bug fixes

The update is free and is available from the App Store.

Apple released released its “Best of 2013” list this morning, naming the top apps, music, podcasts, TV shows and movies in the App Store. I’m very proud to say that The Loop Magazine was chosen as one of the top magazines in Newsstand.

Thank you.

Infographics are all the rage these days. If you’re looking for a great way to go viral through social media, you can’t do much better than an entertaining infographic. Our friends at MightyDeals are having an awesome deal for 35 infographic templates which you can download and customize as needed. Discounted over 50% for a limited time only. See the templates here.

Dylan Seeger put more into rethinking BlackBerry than the company has. This is certainly worth a read.

A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services.

Great idea.

Boston Bruins’ Milan Lucic attacked in his hometown of Vancouver:

“That’s one of the worst parts, it’s in my hometown,” he said. “Going back to the spray painting of the church and my grandparents and parents and family getting harassed during the [Stanley Cup] finals against the Canucks in 2011, and now it’s escalated to a point where I get attacked for just minding my own business. I have no reason left to defend my city and then the people of my city. I’m just disgusted and outraged that it had to come to something like that. As far as that goes, other than being at Rogers Arena, no one will ever see me in downtown Vancouver ever again.”

Vancouver is just crazy. They riot when Canada wins the Olympics and they riot when they lose the Stanley Cup. Now they attack one of their hometown hockey players. The city is an embarrassment.

There’s no guarantee this will work, but sometimes it’s the last thing you think of that works.

I’ll admit, I haven’t even heard of some of these.